Status Quo Ante Bellum
by Bistre Melancholia
Summary: When the past comes back to play. A Waiting sidestory.


**A Cinderella who would be queen.**

Sometimes you wonder if you brought this unto yourself. You were always a bit wanting, but it was all in good fun, half-fantasy, half-dream. You learned your lesson the first time. You repented, or at least you think you did. You married a nice fisherboy, a little dull, but sweet. He puts food on the table, fish of course, and sometimes he'll buy you the dress you've been fancying, or some reasonable imitation of it. You have a home, small and modest, and you almost laugh when you realize that you would have never used such words before. So it isn't happily ever after, but you should be content.

You aren't.

You still dream of a blessed life in the palace, servants waiting on your every whim. Feasts aplenty and balls galore. You might be a little older now, but you're still pretty, and everyone knows that magic is always available to those who can pay. At night when you're gutting the day's catch, watching as blood and innards spill onto work-hardened hands, you reminisce, harking back to that day when you were so close, before he calls you back to the present. "It's late, Ilsabil. Come to bed. The fish can wait."

There your illusions dissolve, and once more you're the fisherman's wife. You sleep almost peacefully now, and you think maybe one day you'll wake and you'll be happy again.

When you rise, hours after dawn, your husband long gone to his mistress sea, you find all the fish cut and cleaned, like always. Sometimes you think you do this on purpose, slitting each belly slower than the last and pretending you don't feel him leaving in the morning, but you always brush it away.

You do your duties like a good wife should and it's never a burden. After all, this is nothing new, and he's not meticulous. If you wanted, you could always refuse, but there's truly nothing better to do.

You wonder if this is how you'll die, and you close your eyes, forcing the thoughts away. It's almost sickening how weak you've become.

The bell rings six, deep strikes. You open the door to let in the sea breeze, listening to the call of the gulls and albatross as they flutter up, melding into the sky's muddy streaks of red. He tells you stories sometimes, tales of the bitter salt air on hungry lips and the cry of a million fish dying, of him against the world when the world will always win, of death and life and redemption. He told you once, on one of those quiet days when he did nothing but sit near the docks and sing ditties to the deep. "Ilsabil, you see those birds there? That's Adam. And there's Rin. Great men, those two."

You've never regretted your choices, but at that moment, you regretted all of them.

It didn't matter though. Nothing can change the past, and few days later, you forgot about your moment of weakness, letting it slip into the steady stream of life passing you by. And now you stand at the door of the place you reluctantly call home, waiting. .

He kisses you when he comes back, a lazy smile on his lips, and tells you how he'd caught a mermaid in his nets. There'll be no fish tonight, but your mind, still mischievous after all these years, races, and you can't help but demand to know what he wished for. The fool wished for nothing, and you smile. God may be merciful yet.

You say in your sweetest voice, a little worse for wear from long disuse, "Wouldn't a new home be nice? A small cottage by the sea instead of this," and the memories trickle back. Oh how you've missed this.

He looks uneasy – the sea has done much for him already – but he agrees, kissing you once more.

You feel magic in the air, crackling, and suddenly you're back to that day. You see him clearly, offering you the contract. You were so arrogant then, oh so confident that you would _win_. Has anything truly changed?

You look down and you almost see that accused dress still clinging, your soul screaming not to be sold, the prince looking at you with that empty stare, and you fall.

Your husband is there when you wake, worry staining into the wrinkles of his eyes. The hovel is a cottage now, but you're shaking. No, no, no. You tell him that it was a mistake. Go back. Repent. You don't want this anymore. It hurt too much the first time.

He's confused – after all you never told him about your past – but he agrees, anything to stop the tears you didn't know were falling.

It isn't happily ever after, but better than you deserve. You should be content.

And maybe you are.

* * *

A/N: So that's what happened to dear ol' Cindy...she became the fisherman's wife o.O What happened to the flounder, you ask? He was too busy singing with a French shrimp.

In any case, I'm going to finish Waiting very soon, or at least as soon as I can find a fairytale that I want to do. If you have any suggestions, please tell me. PM, review, vote in the poll. Whatever works for you.


End file.
